St.
Paul’s United Church Sunday, January 1, 2006
Strength and Wisdom in 2006 – Rev. David Mundy
Luke 2: 22-40
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Would you expect to come to church on the first day of the new year to hear tales about vampires? In the United Church
we are prepared for just about anything but the answer is likely to be an
emphatic “NO!” What about news that the most famous vampire writer beyond Bram
Stoker has given up telling stories about the Night Stalker and started writing
about Jesus?
Her name is Anne Rice and for decades she has successfully “scared the
willies” out of her faithful readers with stories of horror. But a series of
distressing events in her life, including the death of her husband, led her
back to the Roman Catholic church of her upbringing
and into meaningful faith.
Now Rice speaks about her Christian faith with evangelical zeal and she
has publicly vowed to stop writing her dark tales and to use her skills and
fame to promote the message of Jesus Christ. Her first novel with a Christian
theme is called Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt. It is Rice’s
attempt to fill in the “lost years” of Jesus’s life.
We hear about Jesus’ birth in the gospels of Luke and Matthew and there is one
story of the precocious twelve-year-old talking theology with religious leaders
in the temple of Jerusalem, but other than that we encounter Jesus next at his
baptism when he is approximately thirty (we aren’t really sure of his age.)
What happened in between, after the family fled to Egypt to escape
Herod’s wrath and eventually returned to Palestine. What happened as Jesus grew
through adolescence and into adulthood. In Christ the Lord Jesus
literally learns at the knees of his parents and his extended family. His
mother sings him to sleep with tales of the great King David.
The bedtime stories for young Jesus are the exciting bible tales such as
the story of Jonah who tries to run from God, is thrown overboard during a
storm, swallowed
by a great fish, and eventually burped back onto land to reluctantly do God’s
bidding.
On the sabbath day
Jesus and other young boys have the opportunity to listen in on earnest
theological conversations and study amongst the men of his home village of
Nazareth. “The Sabbath makes philosophers of us all” is the phrase young
Jesus remembers.
Jesus also learns from the negative examples of his youth. During a
pilgrimage trip to Jerusalem he sees the moneychangers in the temple and
realizes that this is a great injustice .
It’s interesting that while Anne Rice believes that Jesus is God’s son
and the saviour of the world, she assumes that he learns his faith the way we
all do, through teaching and example.
This morning we are coming to the end of the twelve days of the brief Christmas
season with the passage of scripture in Luke’s gospel which tend to be ignored
at this time of year even though it follows closely after one of our
favourites.
In the first verses of Luke, chapter two, angels sing and shepherds
watch and Mary gives birth to the baby Jesus in the manger of a stable. All
this we hear at Christmas and we see it too in our Nativity scenes.
Our passage this morning continues directly from that story, with the
infant Jesus presented in the temple, first of all for the ritual of belonging
called circumcision, then to be introduced to two elders of Israel who had been
awaiting the Messiah sent by God, six weeks or so after Jesus was born.
The verse that caught my eye was the very last one in this passage. In
verse forty it says that “the child grew and became strong, filled with
wisdom: and the favour of God was upon him.”
Jesus grew physically, and he was probably an active child. There is
also the intimation here that Jesus exercised his spiritual sinews and
tendons and muscles so that he became healthy and well developed in the ways of
faith in God.
How important is it for us to become strong and wise in our faith as we
enter into the year of our Lord, two thousand and six?
I’m sure that many of you feel that it is important for your children or
grandchildren to grow in their relationship with God and Jesus Christ. I see
that lots of our families are conscientious about bringing their children to
Sunday School and perhaps encouraging them to be in
relationship with God through the rest of the week by saying prayers at
mealtime and bedtime. And of course there are those “on the fly” discussions
about what it means to be moral and ethical persons. While my own children are
now young adults, we are still having the conversations about being honest
and fair, and they are often the ones
pointing out to me that when we are followers of Jesus we choose to live
differently.
It’s well and good that we make this effort, but what about for
ourselves and our continuing growth in the Christian life?
Lots of folk admit that they get detoured along the way and stop growing
spiritually or become rather blase about the
relationship with God which informs all others. It shouldn’t surprise us.
Going deeper in the ways of faith requires stamina and commitment and
the investment of time both as we worship together and as we study together. But
making that effort can bring about some unexpected results.
Last Fall
we offered the first six weeks of a program called Beginnings, an
introduction to the Christian faith. Before we began, I wondered who would come
and was actually a little concerned that it was going to be an uneasy
combination of those who had been around the church for a long time as well as
several people who were recent returnees to the church. A couple of the
participants had no Christian memory but were curious.
It turned out to be a very stimulating group for me as the leader and if
those involved were to be believed it was helpful for them whether they were
long-timers or newcomers. It was an important reminder to me that it really
doesn’t matter how long we are part of the faith community we all need the
opportunity to explore what it means to be Christian.
Actually, one of the ways that this came home to me was when one of our
participants asked if I could pick up some index tabs which would mark the
different books in the new bible he was purchasing. When I picked them up, I decided to get a set
for myself even though I figure I know my way around the “Good Book” fairly
well after all these years. When I put them in place I was reminded of how
varied the bible is and of all the different forms of literature the books
represent and how the bible is both simple and complex at the same time. It is
simply arrogant to think that any of us ever “arrives” in our Christian life.
How do we create the framework in which we become stronger as the people
of Christ? Back in 1964 Oxford professor Albert Outer suggested that one of the
great figures of our tradition, John Wesley lived by and taught what Outer
termed the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. Sometimes this is shown as a
square, subdivided into four quarters.
R Scripture - the books of the Old and New Testaments in our bible
R
Tradition - the two millennia history of the Christian community
which is Christ’s church
R Reason - the God-given ability for rational thinking
R
Experience - one's personal journey in Christ
which includes mystical communion
with God
Dr. Outer later regretted coining this term because it made the
experience of faith formation into something rather static, and he has pointed
out that Wesley gave greater weight to scripture than the other areas. Still,
it is helpful because
these four aspects of our growth in Christian faith are
essential.
Since then another scholar had offered the metaphor of the wind chime,
where the various aspects of our faith development sound in contact with the
others, which is probably a more helpful image.
This is January first, a traditional day for establishing resolutions
for the new year. Some folk have obviously resolved
not to attend church after New Year’s Eve celebrations and perhaps you wish
that you had joined them!
I want to suggest a couple of resolutions for this Christian community in
2006. One is that we ensure that our children will develop spiritual strength
and wisdom. We now have approximately one hundred children in our nursery and
Sunday School program. My desire and prayer are that
we will give the time and resources, including financial support to the faith
formation of this essential group within our congregation.
At the same time I hope that each one of us, no matter what our age,
will make the commitment to deepen our faith in God and in Jesus Christ. I have
a habit of sticking Post-it notes everywhere in my study, often with rather
cryptic messages to myself that I have trouble discerning. I found one while I
was cleaning my desk this week and at first I wasn’t sure why I scribbled them
down. There were just two words, velocity and depth.
After staring at them for a while it came back to me. It seems that
every year our lives have increasing velocity – we just get faster and faster
in what we do and we grow accustomed to living at that breakneck speed. That
doesn’t mean that we have depth. We are all going to get a year older in 2006,
God willing. It would be helpful if during this year we got wiser, spiritually,
as well as older.
You might choose to attend a study group, and to make the commitment to
daily devotional time so that Christ. Even if you have never participated in a
group before you can benefit from being in conversation with others who want to
grow. I would also encourage finding some place of service where you are giving
to others in Christ’s name.
We can all do this not because it is our duty or a chore but because we will be more alive and more complete as human beings because of it. In one of the many interviews with Anne Rice where she is asked about her return to Christian faith she makes it clear that she is excited about the difference following Jesus is making to her life: “... this is the biggest adventure of my life. Thrilling beyond everything."
In the year of our Lord, two thousand and six, allow Christ to be present so that you will grow in strength and wisdom. Amen!